Side Inlets to Improve Water Quality

Side Inlets to Improve Water Quality

2014

Ditches convey surface runoff water and subsurface tile drainage from artificially drained agricultural lands and are important to the agricultural economy of Minnesota and other Midwestern states. However, traditional methods of surface and subsurface drainage often result in degraded water quality. There has been increased interest in developing Best Management Practices (BMPs) for drainage ditches. Ideally, BMPs mitigate the negative impact of artificial drainage while limiting their negative consequences on crops and farm management. A potential BMP is the design or retrofitting of side inlets. Side inlets serve as surface runoff outlets for agricultural lands to drainage ditches. They are generally located adjacent to ditch berms in small depressions. They can be designed or retrofitted to temporarily store surface runoff, decreasing downstream peak flow rates and reducing the sediment contributions of croplands. There are many design variations of side inlet controls and include slotted standpipes, rock inlets, rock weirs and high-density drainage coils. The Hickenbottom riser was selected as a representative of a slotted pipe design. The effectiveness of alternative designs for side inlets was the primary focus of this study. The key tasks were to 1) develop a DEM-based method for the identifying the location of side inlets in the watershed and for characterizing their physical features, 2) to collect field data on the hydraulic characteristics and sedimentation processes for the different types of side inlets, 3) to use a simulation model for individual sites to rigorously investigate the impact of these inlets on the peak outflow rates and the effluent sediment loads, and 4) to assess the cumulative impact of multiple side inlets on flow rates and sediment yields at larger watershed scales. The types of side inlets considered in this study were the widely used existing straight pipes and alternative designs consisting of flush pipes, Hickenbottom risers, rock inlets, and rock weirs.

Krider, Lori
Peterson, Joel
Bear, Karl
Titov, Mikhail
Kramer, Geoffrie
Wilson, Bruce N.
Strock, Jeffrey S.
Sands, Gary R.

Graduate Student, Water Resources Sciences
Dept of Agricultural Engineering Technology University of Wisconsin - River Falls 163 Agricultural Engineering Annex 410 S. 3rd St, River Falls, WI 55022 Phone: 715.425.3985 E-mail: joel.peterson@uwrf.edu
Dept. of Soil, Water and Climate, SW ROC, U of M
U of M Dept. of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering
U of M , Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering
Associate Professor and Soil Scientist, U of M - SWROC
Associate Professor and Extension Engineer

UM Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering
Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology
UM Department of Soil, Water, and Climate
UM Southwest Research and Outreach Center
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

175

Surface Water
Water Quality & Pollutants
Water Conveyance & Hydraulics
Water Economics

surface runoff
surface runoffs
tile drainage
tile drainages
sediment
sediments
sedimentation
alternative tile intake
alternative tile intakes
drainage ditch
drainage ditches
drainage-ditch
drainage-ditches
tile drain
tile drains
tile inlet
tile inlets
agriculture drainage
agriculture drainages
agricultural drainage
ag drainage
Public Drainage Ditch
Public Drainage Ditches
side inlet
side inlets
side-inlet
side-inlets
surface drainage ditch
surface drainage ditches
Alternative Tile Inlets
319 project
319
Section 319 Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program
sediment trap
sediment traps

2010-2019

No

Public Domain

Minnesota Water Research Digital Library